Plum Deadly (6 page)

“No. I was supposed to ask Frank. Have you heard anything?”

“Not a thing. Frank didn’t seem to feel like sharing. But the press release makes your story more credible. That makes his job harder. I’m sure he would’ve liked it if you were a slam dunk.”

Biscuitland was only a couple blocks up. It was a dingy little diner that served breakfast all day and night with their specialty, biscuits. The coffee was terrible, but sitting down for a few minutes while she drank it made Maggie feel a little better.

It didn’t hurt that Ryan was across from her, drinking coffee and buttering a biscuit. It was good to know she could start to trust someone else.

“You were right about the press beating down our door this morning,” she told him. “I tried to get Aunt Clara away from them. She wanted to give them pie to advertise the shop.”

He laughed. “She’s a character. How does she feel about all of this?”

“I’m not sure. I hope she believes that I didn’t kill anyone or steal anything.”

“I’m sure she does.”

“Are you going to share that email with the other reporters?”

“No. I don’t have to share information with them. I might be the only one who still has this piece of the puzzle next week. I’m sorry if that makes it harder for you.”

Of course he had his own best interests at heart.

Still, the more Maggie looked at him, the more she could
appreciate that his eyes were very blue, like the afternoon sky rather than blueberries. He had a nice smile, and she liked the way his blond hair curled at the edges.

He looked very athletic too—more like a runner than a weight lifter. He was wearing a dark suit and blue tie this morning with a white dress shirt. The suit looked like it had been tailored for him, making his shoulders look broader and his waist narrower.

Aunt Clara would be delighted to know that he wasn’t wearing a wedding band. There wasn’t even a white line on his finger.

Maggie finally stopped staring at him when he looked up from his biscuit and smiled at her. She cleared her throat and took a sip of coffee to mask her embarrassment at being caught checking him out.

“Why do you think no one else showed up for the press conference? Do you think they just deleted their emails?”

“I’m not really sure. It would’ve been only local media anyway. That was yesterday’s news. Today, your ex-boss is dead. Whatever he was going to say is gone with him. People lose interest quickly. It might come back up again if the police decide he was murdered. Nothing like a good murder to stir the pot.”

“But you came.”

“That’s different. I met
you
.” He offered her half of his biscuit.

Maggie didn’t take it, but she took a big sip of coffee to mask her sudden nervousness. Ryan hadn’t meant it in a romantic way. This was business, but her heart danced around some in her chest.

“Being a weekly paper is more like being a magazine than a newspaper,” he explained. “We have to go deeper than the daily headlines and look at the whole story. People like that. They subscribe to the
Durham Weekly
because of it. I try to give my readers an intelligent view of what happened. Sometimes it takes more than one issue. That’s okay.”

Ryan had such passion and commitment to what he did that Maggie suddenly couldn’t wait to get home and read a copy of the paper. Newspapers might be dying out, but she couldn’t imagine his interest ever waning.

“Why did
you
come out this morning?” he asked. “You had to know the kind of reception you’d get, especially from Frank. You know, killers do that kind of thing, right? The police count on it. Arsonists come back too. They like to see the aftermath. It might not have been your best move. It made you look a little guilty.”

She hadn’t thought of that before she came.

“I don’t know. I thought I might figure something out about what happened to Lou. I did, I guess. I know he didn’t die from a heart attack, and that he was serious about telling the world the truth about me.”

“You also found out that Frank isn’t sure about you being a person of interest at all. He’s looking in other directions. He’s on shaky ground right now. With Lou being from out of town, Frank has to work twice as hard.”

“I suppose that’s true.” She didn’t know if that was good news for her or not, but hearing Ryan say it made her feel better.

It had been a long time since she’d had a personal, non-work-related experience with a man, even longer than
the last six weeks. It made her feel a little giddy and flushed.

Her job for the bank was too hectic for a personal life. It wasn’t only not visiting or calling Aunt Clara. She barely had time to think most of the time. That’s why when Lou had first told her about the theft, she’d had to think twice to know if it was simply a careless mistake on her part. Once she’d realized how big the theft was, she’d known it wasn’t her fault. It was too late then.

There was no one to turn to when she’d come home, except Aunt Clara. She hadn’t kept up with her friends from Duke. They had no other relatives. It was nice talking to Ryan about everything.

Maggie forced herself to quit thinking about Ryan in
that
way. She had to concentrate on clearing her name. He could be a big help in that direction.

It didn’t hurt that he looked so good too.

“Do people really poison each other anymore?” Maggie though out loud. “That sounds so Romeo and Juliet. Most people have guns. Why not just shoot Lou in the alley if you wanted to get rid of him?”

“Maybe whoever did it wanted to make it look like it happened at the pie shop—involving you once your background with Lou came out. It’s a good cover. It might have given the killer time to get away. Lou could’ve been poisoned hours before and not died until he was leaving Pie in the Sky. Very effective.”

“Glad you’re a fan.” She thought about it a little more. “But that would mean Lou had to tell his killer that he was going to see me. What if he’d told me who the person was
who framed me? That seems to be a big risk for the killer. A bullet would’ve been faster, more thorough.”

Ryan shrugged, washing down the last of his biscuit with coffee. “Maybe not if the killer knew about the press conference. You said Lou was a grandstander and that’s why you thought he wouldn’t tell you about what happened without all the fanfare. Maybe the killer felt confident that Lou wouldn’t say anything until then.”

“So someone who knew him fairly well?” Maggie thought again about the men and women who were Lou’s bosses and coworkers. “There are hundreds of possibilities. Lou said the person who really took that money was higher up than him. I reported directly to Lou, but I met plenty of the bank’s vice presidents, senior vice presidents, and so on at Christmas parties and other social functions. It could be any of them. I keep wondering why one of them would choose to frame me for this. Why not pick Lou?”

“Good question. Maybe the thief liked Lou and didn’t want him to get into trouble. Or maybe he needed Lou to cover up future thefts. He didn’t count on him caring about you so much that he’d tell everyone the truth when he found out.” Ryan looked at his cell phone and handed her a business card. “I have to go to a groundbreaking ceremony. Call me if you hear anything new.”

Maggie looked at his card. “Thanks for listening and strategizing with me. It helped.”

“Not a problem.” He looked into her eyes. “For what it’s worth, I believe you, Maggie. It might be hard to figure out exactly what happened to Lou. If Frank finds out Lou was poisoned, you might be on his radar again. I’ll talk to you later.”

M
aggie knew Ryan
was right. If there was any way to avoid being a suspect in Lou’s death, she would find it. She felt like she was in the middle, though, and there was no way out.

She reminded herself that the police had no real evidence linking her to Lou’s death, even if it turned out to be a murder. But that gave her very little comfort. If Lou was right about evidence being manufactured to pin the embezzlement on her, anything was possible.

There had to be some way to prove she was innocent.

She walked back down to the pie shop. With a quick look
over her shoulder to make sure she was alone, she went into the alley behind the shops to examine the spot where she’d found Lou.

There was nothing unusual to see except some crime scene tape.

She let out a frustrated sigh. “Why didn’t you tell me who framed me? Maybe we could have confronted him together and he’d have known there was no point in killing you. We’d both be happier this morning.”

She was talking to the stairs and it wasn’t doing her much good. She wished she’d said that to Lou yesterday. Who knew something like this would happen?

You did. You thought about something happening that would prevent Lou from clearing your name and you didn’t act on it.

“Excuse me.”

Maggie jumped. A big man in a black suit stood next to her. He was wearing a black fedora and looking at the empty stairs too.

“Sorry. Just talking to myself,” she said with an embarrassed smile. “If you’re looking for pie, the shop is closed.”

The man in the black fedora smiled. “I’m actually looking for Clara Lowder. You wouldn’t happen to be her niece, Maggie, would you?”

Maggie looked at him closer. Not many men in Durham wore a fedora or carried a gold-handled cane. He was also wearing an expensive gold watch. His whole demeanor was one of wealth and power, even though he was standing in the alley. She imagined he would be overpowering no matter where he stood.

“Who are you?”

“You
must
be Maggie. I see the resemblance. I’ve heard so much about you.” He extended his gloved hand to her. “I’m Albert Mann. I own Mann Development. Clara was very excited about you coming back the last time I spoke with her. You two had been apart for a while.”

Maggie doubted they’d had any kind of intimate chat. Aunt Clara loathed this man. “I don’t think Aunt Clara shared anything with you.”

“Please, call me Albert. I’ve sat in that pie shop plenty of times eating pie with your aunt before this whole negotiation turned ugly.” He shook his head and pointed his finger at her. “I think you’re the one to blame for that, young woman.”

“Me? I think it’s that Aunt Clara doesn’t want to sell the pie shop. Maybe you should look for another piece of property.”

“She wasn’t so against it until you came back. Now she seems to think you’re staying here with her so she doesn’t need to sell.”

“Cut the crap, Albert. I’ve been in the banking business for a long time. You’ve been pressuring my aunt to sell. Why don’t you leave her alone? Maybe she’ll sell when she’s ready to retire.”

“I haven’t forced anyone to do anything. Careful what you say—you might be in court for slander as well as stealing money from your former employer.” He smirked. “You’re developing quite a rap sheet, aren’t you? Now the police think you might have killed the man you found here yesterday.”

“You can’t bully me. I’ve known too many men like you.
You’re not getting the pie shop until Aunt Clara is ready. Back off.”

He took a deep breath, as though to steady himself. His gloved hands gave him away—they were clenched in fists. “I’m not trying to bully anyone, Maggie. I’ve tried to convince your aunt that it would benefit her to sell to me. That’s a statement of fact. If Clara misinterpreted my words, I’m sorry.”

Maggie hadn’t been around during any encounters between this man and Aunt Clara. A few of his representatives had come into the pie shop in the last six weeks. They’d been obnoxious and arrogant. She supposed she couldn’t necessarily blame him for that, but she remained cautious.

“You can stop sending in your goon squad lawyers trying to convince her otherwise too. No offer is going to be attractive to her. This place means something to her, something more than money. Maybe you can’t understand that.”

“Think about what’s at stake here. Your aunt isn’t getting any younger. You’ve been in the shop. The place reeks of benign neglect. She’s barely scraping by and can’t reinvest to keep it up. She can’t run the place by herself. I’m sure you see that too.”

“She won’t be running it by herself anymore,” Maggie said. “I’ll be here helping her from now on.”

He laughed. “For how long? You’re back now but you’ll be gone again soon. Think about your aunt’s future and what’s best for her. She could buy herself into a nice retirement spot where she wouldn’t have to get up at five a.m. and walk down to this dingy shop and make piecrust. Surely you don’t want her to end her days this way.”

Maggie frowned. She knew he was playing on her guilt, but it was still working.

He may be a scumbag, but what if he’s right? What if it doesn’t work out for me to stay here? How can the pie shop support both of us when it’s barely supporting Aunt Clara? But if I leave again, Aunt Clara will be scraping by until everything falls in on her.

“How much are we talking about?” she asked in a cold voice.

He named a price. “A generous sum, you’ll agree.”